If these rules made any kind of sense, or were applied with any kind of consistency, it’d be okay. It’s just a little hard to accept getting yelled at for eating at my desk when there are people going past with bags of popcorn and chips and bagels and so on.
It also didn’t help that I had to prove that I needed accommodations. For example, if I’d had a doctor’s note, I could’ve eaten at my desk or rearranged it without any fuss. But since I didn’t think I needed doctor’s notes (I mean, it’s common knowledge that pregnant women need to eat), I didn’t get any.
Basically, what it comes down to is, I’m too independent to be a successful team player there. This does not bother me. My independence makes me valuable where management does not feel the need to hold our hands and treat us like children.
The only way to put an end to this evil system is if we all get together and do it.
Look, the system cannot run without us. If we were all together, we could demand the de-corporatization of the economy and create worker run cooperatives in their place.
The only place to start on this long and bloody road is to create a union of the workers in each workplace. Trying to do that will get you fired, of course, unless everyone else sticks up for you.
The corporate mindset is very powerful even in the minds of the most abused people. Most people actually accept corporate logic.
Galen’s right. But I don’t see any chance of this happening.
J. Chance said that if emplyees have a right to quite at any time, employers should have the right to let people go at any time. Granted. But I think one of the complaints is that many employers work hard at leading emplyees to believe that their jobs are quite safe. Then, when people are let go, they feel betrayed. Then there’s the practice of letting people go just before they would have worked long enough to qualify for a pension.
What “evil system” is that? The one that provides resources allowing you to clothe and feed yourself and your family? The system in which people generally advance in compensation according to ability and effort? I just don’t understand all this hate of capitalism. This “evil system” is the foundation of an ever-improving standard of living for the participants. A standard of living that far outpaces the standard of living in places using other economic systems.
Sure, if you look at the operation of it at a very local and individual level, it can at times appear pretty bleak, but name one thing that doesn’t.
I suggest you read a bit of history to see how well this has worked in the past. With very few and very modest exceptions, experiments such as these have been unqualified failures. Just as the Chinese, or the members of the old Soviet Union how well they were treated under their worker-cooperatives. Ask them about their standard of living compares with yours.
I know all that communism and socialism shit sounds good on paper, but like nearly everything else in life, the reality just cannot match the expectations. There are plenty of examples proving this.
My current workplace (a quite successful ISP, part of a telco) is being shut down. Personally, I benefit from it - I’ll bring a decent chunk of severance pay with me to the US, so I shouldn’t fret. Yet I’m pissed.
The explanation for the shutdown: We’re an economic liability, and attempts to sell the department have failed - so we’re being closed down. The explanation is utter BS.
We’re making money (not a lot, but most ISPs lose money, these days), we are (well, we were) expanding and we’re winning contracts as well as tests. To hammer that point home, the end-of-year bonuses (calculated partly on department fiscal performance) were fulfilled to 101% (not a typo). So - ehm - this “liability” made more money than planned in the last fiscal year.
No buyers ? We know the names of the investors who wanted to buy the department and run it as an independent ISP.
If the department must be shut down, I guess that’s the way of it. There might be sound strategic reasons for it, for all I know.
But sheesh, do not feed us BS! Don’t stand there with a long face and say how sorry it makes you that we couldn’t compete. We could - we did - and the only sorry thing here is your excuse for integrity.
In case you are wondering, I The Shagnasty am the other employee to which Morgainelf speaks. The evil empire to which she is referring is THE BOSE CORPORATIONTHE BOSE CORPORATION.
I am all for capitalism but they simply lied to me 1 year ago when they hired me and said that they “do not ever lay off corporate employees”. This caused me to select this software development job over another higher-paying one because I was just coming off of a layoff that was handled very poorly and left a bad taste in my mouth for publicly traded companies.
This wasn’t one of those large layoffs that make it in the news. They simply targeted one new hire per department as part of a new cost-cutting initiative ordered by our brand new fearless leader Madam Cuntsworthy. The effect on the division’s bottom line and the word on the street was that she wanted to try out a very small-scale lay-off as a “management experiment” to lead the way for more in the future.
Besides being ethically reprihinsible, I am one of the ones paying for the fact that she couln’t pass Management 101 with the answer key hidden up her inappropriately short skirt.
People call it “evil” because they want to have the ability to leave when they choose yet have permenant job security, receive ever increasing raises without providing addition services, and receive endless pensions well after the time they have stoped working. People seem to think the system is fine when they can take out of it. Its when the system asks for them to put something back in when people start to complain. How many of the people who complained about being laid when the market went south are the same people who changes jobs at the drop of a hat?
There is very little loyalty in the system. Corporations are there to make money, period. They are places of business, not social clubs, families, fraternity houses, or charaties. No matter how “fun” or “collegial” or “employee oriented” a company is, if you are not producing or if you are viewed as “not fitting in” you will be asked to leave. The other stuff is nice and can make work more bearable, but it is work after all.
Oh Hi msmith537
This is your old friend Shagnasty (Maverick). Let me put a more personal face on things. You were there when Stride-Rite pulled that crap with our entire department (fine, I can deal with that and it worked out Ok until now). I specifically chose the job at Bose because they promised that they never had and never would lay off employees in my type of position. The point is that they just plain lied to me and to the others. It my be legal, and it may be “just business” but it will never be ethical and in the end it is not good business. If you start threatening random micro-layoffs you affect moral immediately, decrease employee loyalty, and destabalize your work force. My point is that it is just a piss-poor management tactic unless something drastic happens like a plant closing.
If you need to fire someone, fire them. However, it is a terrible idea to make everyone think that they may be randomly selected for the chopping block at any time.
The system may provide material wealth, it may put a roof over our heads and keep us from starving to death in the gutter, but spiritually and emotionally it’s a dead end.
Humans are emotional creatures. Our lives our governed by more than self-serving, rational impulses. We have a sense of duty, a need for security, and a desire to accomplish something. Our work ethic demands the we be loyal to somebody or something, and we expect reciprocity. We are not simply vending machines that spit out a day’s work when the boss sticks a paycheck in the slot.
A good portion of our lives is spent at the office. We follow orders, try to do a good job, and trade our valuable time for sustenance. We can’t simply turn off our humanity from nine to five every weekday and perform our work quietly and efficiently like robots. We crave an emotional connection to our work. We need something to believe in, something beyond that monthly paycheck. We do our best work when we know that we’re part of a valued team and not an expendable “human resource” that can be replaced as easily as a cog in a machine. We want jobs that not only provide us with a living, but jobs that fulfill us as well. It’s not in the least bit rational, but neither are we.
If we can’t believe in what we’re doing, if we find ourselves working out of necessity rather than desire, if we find ourselves working simply to avoid starvation, homelessness, or lack of medical insurance, then our “job” is not much different than slavery.
Shagnasty, I can see it now. I’ll be in a meeting next week, and slip up…“Excuse me, Madame Cuntsworthy, would you please tug down on your inappropriately short skirt? I can see the crotch of your suntan panty hose…”
Without getting into the real question of the OP (are corporations heartless evil bastards?), I’ll say it helped me understand things when my company came out with their statement that the mission of the company was “to increase shareholder value.” In other words, the company thrives when the investors make money. Whatever causes that to happen (and assuming the execs aren’t padding their golden parachutes in spite of this) is what the company will do. In the fat times of a few years ago, that meant doling out the bonuses and spending lotsa dough on employee programs. In the recent lean times, it’s meant cutbacks, demotions, and the spectre of layoffs. While it would have been small comfort had I not dodged the demotion bullet, at least I understood their position going in. Sounds like most of the other companies represented in this thread are more two-faced, and that sucketh, verily.
Hey Maverick, good to hear from you. Yeah, I remember when they had those layoffs (and the two more rounds after I left).
If anyone else is interested, Shagnasty and I worked together in the IT department of a company for about two years. Basically the entire department was poorly managed, overrun by consultants, and plagued by high turnover all due to a massive internal project that spiraled out of control. Long story, short, once the project neared completion, most of the consultants rolled off, the new CIO arbitrarily layed off most of the staff required to support the project and within 6 months everyone else pretty much quit or were laid off. I should have taken better notes while I was there because it would have made a great HBR case study.
I wouldn’t say that the corporation was “evil” because of it. I would say that like any organization run by people, it is suceptable to the same character flaws as the people running it. As a professional, I understand that, right or wrong, my employment can end at any moment, for any reason. I accept that as part of the job and I plan my life accordingly. Heck, I don’t believe anything HR tells me unless it’s in writing.
What I have a problem with is when companies try to impose more of themselves into my personal life. I don’t mind putting in the long work days but I have a real problem with the mandatory extra-ciricular stuff. For example, I work for a Big-5 consulting firm now (no, not Andersen). I typically work about 60 hours or so. That doesn’t include travel time to clients. Time spent in hotels for weeks at a time, or other work related stuff. That’s okay, but at some point I might want to go to the gym or watch TV before going to bed. I don’t want to have to go out to eat every night with my coworkers because our managing partner thinks it builds unity. I don’t want to be forced to go to happy hours or pool halls or any other mandatory “fun” things. In other words, since I can be laid off at a moments notice, stop trying to make sure my entire life revolves around the company at anything more than a professional level.
Roger that! They can’t expect the loyalty to go one way. But it does make me miss what some of my military units had. We did spend off-duty time together and it did build unity, but we did it because we knew the boss would be our shit-shield from The Powers That Be. In fact, one of the adjustments I had to make when leaving the public sector was to realize it was officially none of my business if a subordinate bounced checks or had a drinking problem, as long as it didn’t come to work. Anyway, 2-way loyalty is the best situation, but if you can’t have that, then the company should get their 40 (or 50, or…) out of you and then leave you the heck alone.
UncleBeer: Not to get on you directly, but whenever one of these “Capitalism kinda sucks” threads comes out, someone inevitably comes out with the “Ask someone in Beijing or Moscow…” why should we ask them? Why can’t we ask more moderately socialist countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, or England who all have that mythical “higher standard of living” why it’s better there than it is in the United States? Russia and China had nothing that even really resembled communism, socialism or even Marxism. They had Stalinism and Maoism respectively. I don’t think Stalin’s eliminating millions of his own people is exactly what Karl Marx had in mind. Communism has yet to be tried on a national level in this world. While I think that straight communism requires too much of an utopia to be truly effective, I also believe the same about Democracy and Capitalism. There can be a nice middle ground, a buffer that keeps us from being fucked over. How about national health care so we don’t freak out about breaking a leg after a month after being laid off right after our insurance runs out. How come the only other option given is Russia or China, or some third world country like Somalia, or Nicaragua.
Who said anything about communism, Uncle Beer? They had labor unions in the US long before communist Russia. So what?
Those of you defending this, do you honestly think it was ethical what they did to my father? I’m probably more upset about it than he is. I love my dad to death and to see an honest, good, hard working individual get screwed makes me mad.
Who said anything about communism? Uh, galen did, the person I quoted. If this:
isn’t a succinct description of communism, then what is it?
This is not true. It has been tried repeatedly and in all places has always ended as a corrupt totalitarian state. See, the USSR, China (athough they’ve actually been moving away from communism since about 1978), Yugoslavia, Laos (again moving away from communism since about 1986), and any number of others.
Communism - a definition - A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
Please explain how the USSR and China did not have this communism.
You could, but as Marx and Engels said, socialism is only an intermediary step between capitalism and communism; it was to be established and abandoned rather quickly. (They also expected the death of capitalism and the more industrialzed a state, the faster that death would occur. Marx and Engels have an extremely poor track record.)
I’d also like to make the point that your examples of successful socialist countries also practice a pretty fair amount of capitalism. They are in no way entirely dependent upon socialism for their economic expansion. In Sweden, more than 90 percent of industry is privately owned; Switzerland has a pretty modern market economy; the U.K. is essentially capitalistic, as is Canada. None of your examples are primarily socialist in nature. (This data courtesy the 2000 CIA World Fact Book.)
Well, it makes me angry, too. Dumping the demonstrably superior economic system isn’t likely to help though.
Wait a minute, I’m confused. Is the topic systems of government, or is it economic systems?
If you want to make a case that the terms are universally interchangeable, go ahead. Similarly, if you want to pursue an argument that they are only inextricably tied together for communism, while other forms of governmental and economic systems are free to be mixed and matched as you please, go ahead.
I am also bothered by communism’s potential for being transformed into totalitarian government, but I admit to being attracted to the basic fairness of the proposition that the people who give their physical labor toward a goal should be the ones who reap the lion’s share of the benefits. Perhaps a paradigm for realizing such a proposition has yet to be delineated by anyone. I’m pretty sure I’m not the man to do it, but I’m not going to say it’s impossible. Maybe it should be done without government participation.
Urp. Ya got me there, dad. Lemme try and rake my coconuts outta the fire.
Of course, government and economics are inextricably linked in a communist system. As the definition says, the state plans and controls the economy.
The problem here is that every time communism has been attempted, it ends up so corrupted that there are no benefits left to accrue to the proletariat; they are usurped by the ruling class and managed by the ruling class for the sole benefit of the ruling class. A class that Marx and Engels also wrongly claimed would evaporate. The experiments in communism merely end up trading one master for another. Another master that is more coercive and more corrupt than the capitalist masters under from which individuals can and have crawled.
Certainly in Russia, the citizens were no better off under communism than they were under the Tsars. Hell, even Lenin wasn’t all that enamored of socialism, if we take a look at the market mechanisms of his New Economic Policy. The open markets he introduced were the vanguard of Soviet economic growth after the end of the devasting civil war in 1922. And then came Stalin with his Five Year Plans and claims that Lenin’s NEP was destructive to socialism. Stalin was correct. The NEP was indeed destructive to socialism. In fact, in many segments of the economy, it was the antithesis of socialism.
Communism is simply a dead end. It provides no real means of creating wealth; the pie never gets bigger, no matter how you slice it, as it does in capitalism. There’s plenty of historical evidence for this.
Backing up a bit,
What has this to do with capitalism? How is what you describe any different than communism? Communism requires the individual wishing to share in the benefits (of which there are demonstrably damned few for the proletariat) to work for those benefits. There are still no free rides. There are simply less choices. In both what work you wish to perform and in how to spend your leisure time (and capital).
